SAMPLE
Writing Assessment Services
Tutorial

The Progymnasmata:
Preliminary Rhetoric Exercises
Part One
Presented by
Cindy Marsch, M.A.
www.writingassessment.com
cindymarsch@writingassessment.com
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This sample is taken from a 64-page original document
designed to guide students through the tutorial
The Progymnasmata: Preliminary Rhetoric Exercises (Part One).
The sample in its electronic and printed versions is provided free of charge
to help in your purchase decision and may not be sold.
Anyone desiring a copy should download it from
Writing Assessment Services at the website below.
Any other use constitutes fraud.
The tutorial is provided in electronic form and with evaluation services
available from www.writingassessment.com .
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2
(The sample materials come from the first fifteen pages of the tutorial.)
Contents
The Progymnasmata: Preliminary Rhetoric Exercises
(Part One)
(Text Info, Evaluation Options, How To’s)
Introduction
The Narrative
Assignment One: Narrative
Discussion
Samples
Notes for Teachers/Parents
The Description
Assignment Two: Description
Discussion
Samples
Notes for Teachers/Parents
The Fable
Aristotle on the Fable
Assignment Three: Fable
Discussion
Samples
Notes for Teachers/Parents
The Proverb
Assignment Four: Proverb
Discussion
Samples
Notes for Teachers/Parents
The Anecdote
Assignment Five: Anecdote
Discussion
Samples
Instructor’s Sample
Refutation/Confirmation
Assignment Six: Refutation/Confirmation
Discussion
Samples
Instructor’s Sample Confirmation/Refutation
Concluding Remarks
4
6
8
9
11
13
15
16
18
20
21
22
26
27
28
29
31
33
35
36
37
38
40
42
44
45
45
48
50
54
55
56
61
64
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3
The Progymnasmata: Preliminary Rhetoric Exercises
(Part One)
Text Required: Composition in the Classical Tradition, by Frank D’Angelo. Available via the
WRASSE Bookstore . This text is indispensable for mature students and for parents/teachers of
younger students. Please note that some of the book’s content is not edifying and should be used
with caution and discernment.
Evaluation Options: If you purchased the materials-only version of this tutorial and would like to
add evaluations, please write Cmarsch786@aol.com . If you purchased the standard evaluations
package, you may order extended evaluations at www.writingassessment.com
How to Use this Document: It is possible to use this document entirely online, making use of the
hypertext links. Or you may use it on your computer but offline, composing your assignments in a
separate text/email window. However, for the most thorough experience, I suggest you print out
the document (on one side of each piece of paper) and keep it in a loose-leaf binder. You can
then take notes or try exercises longhand on the reverse of the pages or on your own ruled
paper.
Getting Started: In preparation for beginning the course, you should wander around a bit in Silva
Rhetoricae: the Forest of Rhetoric. Learn how the organization of "trees and flowers" works, and
look up "progymnasmata" at http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric .
Homeschool moms and classroom teachers in particular should also note Lene Jaqua's excellent
and practical discussion on using the progymnasmata with children, at
http://home.att.net/~mikejaqua/may-june-00.html . Lene and another author have also created a
series of progymnasmata texts for elementary writers, entitled Classical Writing.
Please note that among the course materials are assignments and samples from very young as
well as very mature/advanced writers. Some of the material is also very clearly addressed to
homeschool or classroom teachers, and if any of that material is not helpful to you, just skip it.
However, I believe you will find enlightening how different students have accomplished different
ends with their work. Some of the original course participants were as young as junior high age,
some were high schoolers with some rhetoric already under their belts, some were
homeschooling moms, and some were teachers training to teach the progymnasmata to their own
students.
These materials were first produced for a group of Christian students, and we established a kind
of "common ground" familiarity on such matters as the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible,
the inferiority of pagan myths, and the presumed goal of the students to support and promote the
Christian faith in their work. I do not assume that all of my clients will agree with these positions,
and I am happy to discuss them as well as give a fair evaluation to any writer dissenting on a
particular point.
How to Complete the Tutorial: Please note the arrangement of the tutorial into six weekly
segments, including brief summaries of the reading assignments with notes from other sources,
writing assignments, discussion of the content for that week, and samples of other students’ work,
slightly edited. In addition, some segments include a “live class” section, with notes for the
instructor based on my own experience with a class of students ages 7 – 13. The email tutorial is
designed to handle one segment per week, with me as the tutor evaluating assignments.
However, teachers using the tutorial as a guide for their own teaching are encouraged to practice
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4
each segment multiple times, especially with younger students. In fact, I would counsel that you
not try to go beyond the first four or five exercises with a student below seventh grade.
For each chapter after the Introduction I suggest you follow this procedure:
 Read the appropriate chapter of the D’Angelo text and internet documents hyperlinked here,
then the chapter notes I have provided.
 Try to complete the Writing Assignment on your own, completing at least one substantial
draft.
 Read the Discussion and Samples and Live Class sections, where applicable, to enrich your
understanding of the assignment, then make any changes to your assignment that you like.
 If you have purchased evaluations, please submit your assignment as directed below. You
may also email your questions on the assignments at any time, and I am happy to answer.
 Begin the process with the next segment.
Procedure for Evaluations: This tutorial runs six weeks beginning the Monday of the week you
submit your first assignment.
 Transcribe your handwritten or computer file assignment into the BODY of an email
message. (I cannot accept file attachments.)
 Email it to WRASSEVAL@aol.com . I strive to return assignments within one week of their
submission—please inquire if you have not heard from me after one week.
 Remember that you can send any of the assignments at any time during the course that you
like. Please send the first assignment as soon as possible to get things going, and let me
know if you have any questions.
 If at any time you would like to add additional evaluations or revision evaluations, please
email for instructions on how to order those evaluations.
Progym: Classical Writing Workouts: The workbooks in this series are companions to this
tutorial or stand-alone workbooks for those who want to focus on one progymnasma at a time.
Please visit my website to learn more about them.
Welcome!
Major Sources for this Tutorial:
Corbett, Edward, P.J., "Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student," New York: Oxford Univ.
Press, 1965
D'Angelo, Frank J., "Composition in the Classical Tradition," Needham Heights, MA: Allyn &
Bacon, 2000
"Dr. Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric, Abridged, With Questions," New York: Collins,
Keese & Co., 1838
Various websites and other publications referenced within the text
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5
Introduction
Reading: D’Angelo, pp. 1 - 21
Terms to Remember:
progymnasmata ["pro gym nahz MAH tah," according to some]
deliberative, judicial, and ceremonial rhetoric
narrative, description, fable, proverb, anecdote, refutation/confirmation
commonplace, praise/blame, comparison, speech-in-character, thesis, legislation
The progymnasmata provide an effectively graded sequence of exercises, from the
simple to the more difficult or complex, from the concrete to the more abstract, that
introduces speakers and writers to a genuinely rhetorical understanding of the invention
and composition of arguments. In late antiquity, these exercises provided a bridge to
advanced rhetorical training and thence to the real-world practices of deliberative, legal,
and ceremonial persuasion. (D'Angelo, p. 1)
A "classical" approach to writing is not magical, a kind of recipe for academic success. But to the
extent that it recovers what we have lost, a classical approach will serve us all well. Education
has degenerated in the last decades, even to the point that the dreaded freshman composition
course is but a dim shadow of the rigors of writing courses of the past. I believe that work in the
progymnasmata is a part of the solid foundation we need to recover the art of rhetoric.
History of the Progymnasmata
The progymnasmata (singular "progymnasma") were developed in the early centuries A.D. by
instructors who observed in successful rhetoric some components that could be considered
individually and worked on with younger scholars. In a similar way an instructor of art could
isolate from the best extant art various components of color, form, shading, etc., and then set
about to teach those components to younger students of art.
In D'Angelo's treatment of the progymnasmata in Composition in the Classical Tradition we see
elements common to this century's college writing courses--narrative, comparison, description-but they are accompanied by less-familiar chapters. I never taught "The Proverb" or "The
Speech-in-Character" in my college teaching years. But D'Angelo also provides a vision of the
"big picture" of rhetoric and then shows how the small components can be used in the service of
larger, more complex writings. D'Angelo necessarily streamlines some of the topics, and I will
note when he strays from more ancient understandings or practice. But to understand that these
topics designed for college students are the same "themes" English schoolboys labored over in
past centuries should give us humility and determination to press on in the way D'Angelo shows.
The Progymnasmata in Rhetoric
D'Angelo's introductory chapter is vital for a teacher's or advanced student's understanding of the
"big picture" of rhetoric, especially in his coverage of the place of logic in rhetoric. But we needn't
shy from the progymnasmata if our children or we have not yet had logic. Rather, we can work
through many of the exercises, understanding that with a better grasp of logic and more facility
with each technique, we can pull ahead into more sophisticated versions of, say, the description.
D'Angelo describes the old branches of rhetoric--legislative/deliberative, judicial/forensic, and
ceremonial/epideictic—and today’s echoes in legislative debate, courtroom arguments, and the
warnings and encouragements we receive in sermons and proclamations. Some instructors of
ancient times found it helpful to focus on smaller parts of complex speeches and writing, and
"handbooks" helped budding orators learn their craft. The progymnasmata further simplified the
handbook tradition, and they peaked in popularity in Tudor England.
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I suspect D’Angelo’s focus on description of simple places, objects, and times justifies his
placement of description early on, while other instructors put it further down the list of graded
exercises. These instructors probably consider it best as a description of a person in preparation
for a praise/blame of that person and encompassing his looks, history, moral character, etc.
Other Sources
To get a feel for the original progymnasmata, please visit and bookmark the site for “Silva
Rhetoricae: The Forest of Rhetoric,” http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric , which I will designate in this
tutorial as "SR." Because this web document is contained in frames, I cannot cite specific pages
for you to navigate to. The best use of SR for this course is, first, a familiarity with its structure of
"trees" and "flowers" and "roots" (major concepts; details of topics, topics, etc.; and source
materials, including some online documents). Then concentrate on "The 14 Progymnasmata"
(left-hand frame) as we work through them, following the additional links as you find it possible.
As I guide you through D’Angelo's text and our assignments, I will make note also of the
contributions of Dr. Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric, familiar to most American students of the last
century, and Corbett's "Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student" (1st edition). D'Angelo
sometimes defaults to contemporary understanding of the writing forms, and I want to help
provide what older classical scholars have said on the topic. D'Angelo explains his use of
examples in the text as being much of his own invention, as the progymnasmata tradition is
skimpy on examples. I have chosen alternative examples for us to work with in this course in part
to fit the subject matter more closely to the tastes and convictions of Christian homeschoolers, my
primary audience, and in part to provide those who purchase the text with as much fresh material
as possible.
Structure of Our Text and the Tutorial
D'Angelo's text and this course (Part One only) present the progymnasmata as follows:
Part One:
Narrative--telling stories, true or untrue
Description--giving details to "render" a place, a person, or a thing
Fable--adapting familiar ones for persuasive purposes
Proverb--"amplifying a deliberative theme"
Anecdote--expanding on a wise saying for moral instruction
Refutation/Confirmation--proving or "disproving the truth or probability of a given narrative
or statement"
Part Two:
Commonplace--"amplifying the good or evil that a person represents"
Praising/Blaming--focusing on a person's virtue or viciousness
Comparison--for the purpose of choosing the better of two options
Speech-in-Character--composing a speech for a historical/fictional character to deliver
according to his nature
Thesis--exercising the ability to argue on either side of a question
For and Against Laws--arguing legislation
Several homeschooling friends studying rhetoric together online have agreed that the first of the
exercises are appropriate for elementary-age students. But it really takes logic training and the
maturity and experience of high school students to make full use of the later progymnasmata like
Encomium/Invective (Praise/Blame) and essays or speeches on legislative matters. This course
covers the first six of D'Angelo's twelve progymnasmata and should be appropriate for students
as young as fourth grade, with some modification. The second course should be reserved for
students at least beyond sixth grade, in most cases.
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The Narrative
Reading: D’Angelo, pp. 22 - 39
Terms to Remember:
Who, What, When, Where, Why, How
Basis
Condensed, Expanded, Slanted
Modes: Direct Declarative, Indirect Declarative, Interrogative, Comparative
D'Angelo calls narrative a basic building block of rhetoric, noting that poets and historians
celebrate events of the past and teach to the present by this means. Rhetoricians use narrative to
give the facts in a case for persuasion and to prove a part of an argument in the form of an
example. Mythical narratives deal with gods and heroes, historical treat of facts in real time, and
legal often dispense with real time to emphasize the sequence of events in a factual case.
History and Nature of Narrative
Corbett more pointedly explains that the "narratio" of formal rhetoric was seen as optional in
ancient days, and, when used, was better understood as "statement of fact" than as our concept
of "narration." (Corbett, pp. 288ff) For the ancients the facts of history, what we would consider
most important in historical narrative, were subordinated to a greater philosophical or moral aim.
Thus Plutarch's "Lives" are amalgams of fact and fiction crafted to instruct readers with examples
of good men to be emulated and bad men whose actions were to be avoided.
Because epic poetry and other literature are included in our modern concept of rhetoric, or
composition, we show our heritage from the 19th-century classroom. In his very popular
"Lectures," Blair urged that narration in literature and in history or "fictional history" be
"perspicuous, animated, and enriched with every poetic beauty." (Blair, p. 225)
The Four W’s and an H
Narrative answers the familiar questions reporters are to ask -- Who? What? When? Where?
Why? How? D'Angelo labels them in non-alliterative but probably closer translation as Agent,
Action, Time, Place, Cause, and Manner. A judge and jury need to know all these things to
decide a case, but other rhetorical purposes may not need all of them explicitly. The writer of a
narrative should consider them all, to be sure that even the untreated elements may be supposed
to fit nicely among the ones expressed.
D'Angelo also brings to our attention the "basis," or source, of a narrative. What is the original
story, or AN original story, that forms the basis of each of these modern works?
Ten Things I Hate About You, a recent movie
Your favorite Wishbone episode on PBS
Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a Broadway play
I say "AN original story" above because many stories have archetypes in history and mythology.
For instance, scholarly versions of Shakespeare include lots of materials on his sources and
earlier versions of the stories he tells. In order, the sources for these four modern works are The
Taming of the Shrew, assorted classic works of literature, the Cupid/Psyche myth, and the
Biblical story of Joseph.
Uses of Narrative
In everyday life we use narratives all the time, and they're a part of every child's academic life:
"Now tell me about how Noah built the ark..." But the narrative is often just a small part of an
overall rhetorical strategy, and we can use retellings for big purposes. The judicial narrative, or
statement of fact, is probably our clearest modern manifestation of the ancient concept.
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Condensed narratives tell the basic story in fewer words than the original, and sometimes a
narrative is so condensed as to be only a reminder: "Remember the time the muffler fell out of
the car in Nevada?" "Remember what happened when King David stayed home from battle and
got in trouble with Bathsheba?"
In the writing classroom, I often use condensations and THEN an expansion, as with the
techniques of the Institute for Excellence in Writing, www.writing-edu.com . The student is to take
essential notes on a narrative, even just a few words for each sentence or paragraph, and then,
without reference to the original, expand upon the notes to recreate a narrative.
An expanded narrative may appeal to an audience's emotions. In the TV law drama The
Practice, an attorney will often urge the jury to "Imagine the fear he must have felt...." (It might be
interesting to compare this or other modern courtroom dramas with the old Perry Mason, which
often let the facts speak for themselves and didn't hinge a result on a good closing argument.)
Slanted narratives present facts in a way that makes them do a job better for your purpose. How
would Elian Gonzales himself, his father, his great uncle, Fidel Castro, and Janet Reno tell what
happened the day Elian was taken from Miami to his father?
Even if expanded or slanted, a narrative should be brief, clear, and credible, say D'Angelo, or,
according to the literary Blair, "perspicuous, animated, and enriched with every poetic beauty."
Modes of Narrative
The modes of narrative are explained in D'Angelo. A brief example of each with a common basis
should suffice to illustrate the differences:
Direct Declarative: "Judas was paid 30 pieces of silver to identify Jesus to the soldiers
who came to the garden to arrest him."
Indirect Declarative (purposely overdone): "It is said that Judas was paid as much as
30 pieces of silver, supposedly to identify Jesus to the soldiers the disciples allege had
come to the garden to arrest their so-called 'King.' " (Sometimes you must be especially
knowledgeable about your audience when you use the indirect declarative. For instance,
"The Gospels report that..." would be more persuasive to some, less to others.)
Interrogative: "Who paid Judas? Was the thirty pieces of silver the full amount?"
Comparative (also overdone): "Instead of recognizing Jesus as the Son of God and
listening to him, the Jewish leaders bought Jesus with 30 pieces of silver.... Although a
kiss is a seal of friendship, Judas used his to betray Jesus. The soldiers came with
weapons and armor; in contrast, Jesus spoke quietly and went with them without the
struggle they might have expected."
Assignment One: Narrative
For this assignment, we will be condensing and expanding narratives, following one of the ancient
principles of imitation for instruction, a method lauded by Samuel Johnson, Benjamin Franklin,
and others. The slender instruction on narrative in the progymnasmata outline on the SR website
calls for a student to explain the who, what, when, where, why, and how of an action in time. As
you complete the exercises below, fix these elements in your mind so that even if you do not
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explain all of them completely in your versions, they are easily derived from the context you
create.
First, condense one of the following narratives from its original 200-odd words to about 100. The
next day or later that day, using only your condensed version, without looking at the original, write
an expanded literary narrative of about 300 words. You may slant the narrative to make the facts
seem better or worse, and identify the mode you use: direct declarative, indirect declarative,
interrogative, or comparative. Be sure to label your email submission so that I may identify you,
your assignment, and the parts thereof.
The first option below is a standard narrative, the next more complicated, and the last appropriate
for young students.
Option One: Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, 1846
From The American Tradition in Literature, Fifth Ed., Vol. 1, Random House: New York, 1981
"Walden is a complex organization of themes related to the central concept of individualism."
[Note, p. 1448]. Thoreau experimented with living self-sufficiently in the woods, taking copious
notes on the value of different approaches to building, housekeeping, gardening, and cooking.
Bread I at first made of pure Indian meal and salt, genuine hoecakes, which I baked before my fire out
of doors on a shingle or the end of a stick of timber sawed off in building my house; but it was wont to
get smoked and to have a piny flavor. I tried flour also; but have at last found a mixture of rye and
Indian meal most convenient and agreeable. In cold weather it was no little amusement to bake several
small loaves of this in succession, tending and turning them as carefully as an Egyptian his hatching
eggs. They were a real cereal fruit which I ripened, and they had to my senses a fragrance like that of
other noble fruits, which I kept in as long as possible by wrapping them in cloths. I made a study of the
ancient and indispensable art of bread-making, consulting such authorities as offered, going back to the
primitive days and first invention of the unleavened kind, when from the wildness of nuts and meats
men first reached the mildness and refinement of this diet, and travelling gradually down in my studies
through that accidental souring of the dough which, it is supposed, taught the leavening process, and
through the various fermentations thereafter, till I came to 'good, sweet, wholesome bread,' the staff of
life.
(p. 1486, 225 words)
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Option Two: Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis, 1956
Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich: New York and London, 1980
This is a Christianity-laden retelling of the Cupid/Psyche myth, and the narrator here is Psyche's
ugly sister Orual, whose sin ruins Psyche. Note that the core narrative is just a PART of this
excerpt: be sure to use it in your condensation, though you may want to preserve some of the
commentary as well.
It may happen that someone who reads this book will have heard tales and songs about my reign and
my wars and great deeds. Let him be sure that most of it is false, for I know already that the common
talk, and especially in neighbouring lands, has doubled and trebled the truth, and my deeds, such as
they were, have been mixed up with those of some great fighting queen who lived longer ago and (I
think) further north, and a fine patchwork of wonders and impossibilities made out of both. . . . I was
never yet at any battle but that, when the lines were drawn up and the first enemy arrows came flashing
in among us, and the grass and trees about me suddenly became a place, a Field, a thing to be put in
chronicles, I wished very heartily that I had stayed at home. Nor did I ever do any notable deed with
my own arm but once. That was in the war with Essur, when some of their horse came out of an
ambush and Bardia, riding to his position, was surrounded all in a moment. Then I galloped in and
hardly knew what I was doing till the matter was over, and they say I had killed seven men with my
own strokes. (I was wounded that day.) But to hear the common rumour you would think I had planned
every war and every battle and killed more enemies than all the rest of our army put together.
(Chapter 20, paragraph 3, pp. 226-227; 256 words)
Option Three: The Happy Prince, by Oscar Wilde, late 1800s
Simon and Schuster: New York, 1989
Children's book illustrators must flock to do this picture book, and all three editions I have seen
are lovely. It is the story of a statue and a swallow. Because the excerpt below is divided into two
narratives of about 150 words each, you may easily work with just one with younger children,
then perhaps move on to the next in another session. For your assignment for this course, please
choose either of the large paragraphs or, if you are ambitious, the whole thing, but keep your
condensation to 100 words and your expansion to 300.
"When I was alive and had a human heart” answered the statue, “I did not know what tears were,
for I lived in the Palace of Sans Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I
played with my companions in the garden and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall.
Round the garden ran a lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about
me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure
be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high
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that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead
yet I cannot choose but weep.”
"What, is he not solid gold?” said the Swallow to himself. He was too polite to make any
personal remarks out loud.
"Far away,” continued the statue in a low, musical voice, “far away in a little street there is
a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a
table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has coarse red hands, all pricked by the needle,
for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion-flowers on a satin gown for the
loveliest of the Queen's maids-of-honour to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the
corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever and is asking for oranges. His
mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little
Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this
pedestal and I cannot move."
(n.p., 337 words, punctuation and spelling as in original)
Discussion
Q. What would you say are the benefits of contracting and expanding a narrative? How does
this develop composition skills?
A. In a practical scenario, you might be expected to reproduce the gist of a storyline (plotline) or
an argument for a further academic purpose, and the ability to contract a narrative (or any type of
writing) is valuable for that purpose. It is also good for studying or reference. In my course
Writing Skills for the College Bound, students are asked to reduce a 2000-word Smithsonian
article on the history of a museum to a 200-word summary or precis. A summary works with the
author's original, just trimming away extra, while a precis (with an accent over the "i") is more of a
brief reworking in the second writer's own persona.
Contracting one's own prose, while not exactly the same, works to help the writer who tends
toward wordiness to get to the "meat" of his writing. In my course Grammar and Composition for
Real People I take a lovely paragraph from Elizabeth Goudge's The Dean's Watch and ruin it by
adding wordiness to take it from about 150 words to about 300. The students see only the
overblown version and are asked to trim away the "fat" to get to a smooth but lovely narrative.
Later they can compare their own versions to Goudge's and consider the differences in terms of
their literary impact--very interesting exercise!
Expanding a narrative works best when you start with a piece that hasn't already been worked
out in a full literary version (as in a novel or short story). A newspaper story (not a "feature"
article) might be a good choice to begin with. All the historical novels we read, particularly the
ones on Biblical subjects, are expansions of simple narrative "bases." A particularly successful
expansion that comes to my mind is Jill Paton Walsh's Grace, a fictionalized history of a young
woman who helped rescue shipwreck victims in 19th century England. Walsh used actual
excerpts from Grace's letters, newspaper accounts, etc., then filled in with her own speculation
about the young woman's motivations and the course of her story.
My children often need expansion to flesh out their narratives of things we've read together.
Their original narratives (either dictated to me or written out themselves) tend to be too brief, but
we start with those and then I ask good questions to help them add more as needed.
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Q. This may be a really dumb question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. What does
it mean when he says he was "tending and turning them as carefully as an
Egyptian hatching eggs?"
A. A number of years ago a friend asked us to "egg-sit" several goose eggs she was trying to
hatch. She gave us very explicit instructions about turning the eggs at appointed times and then,
a certain time (a day or two?) before hatching was due, to just leave them alone. The eggs didn't
ever hatch once they got them back, and I don't know if we were responsible, but I'd say an
Egyptian trying to hatch eggs might have had similar difficulty. :-)
Q. I'm also a little unclear about this sentence: "They were real cereal fruit, which I ripened, and
they had to my sences a fragrance like that of other noble fruits, which I kept in as long as
possible by wrapping them in cloths."
A. Thoreau is correctly identifying his bread as coming from a "cereal" crop, a grain, and then
creating a metaphor in calling the loaves "fruit," since they were rounded like fruits, took time to
"ripen" like fruits, and were delightful like fruits. I really liked this image, and I think it helped
inspire me to buy some yeast a week or two ago and bread flour today!
Q. I am currently reading the Iliad, and because I am thinking of the utility of narration, do you
think it would be a good tool to ask students to summarize entire chapters? I think my concern is
how to teach the students to pick and choose what is essential and what isn't. How could I
develop an entire chapter via condensation and expansion without it becoming a laborious
exercise?
A. I think that summarizing an entire chapter might be a good idea at some point, but perhaps
more helpful would be summarizing an entire episode or speech. Another good summary along
these lines, for the Odyssey, might be a rundown of the "ports of call" in the adventures of the
hero. I believe you are right that an ongoing summary of everything all the way through would be
laborious both for the student and for the teacher reading them. However, you could use the
reading to practice different types of summary, outlining, drawing even! You could expand or
contract the narrative at different points, slant an episode, etc. There are lots of things to do with
great literature--maybe even translate some of the poetry into Latin or another language of your
choice. While I'm wandering away from the topic <g> I think it's a wonderful exercise, too, to
compare translations of great works. Edith Hamilton has written a great essay on the troubles of
translation--in the introduction to Three Greek Plays.
Samples
Adult, Till We Have Faces Excerpt, Comparative
The comparative can save
words in the long run if it calls
up an extended image in the
reader's mind: "A greenhouse
plant and a young business have
much in common..."
Condensed
Stories about me have been taken from myths about others in
surrounding lands. My own feats are far less notable. Instead of
being a brave warrior who yearns for victory and enjoys the smell
of blood, I have never enjoyed battle. I would have preferred to
stay home during these exchanges than to be in the midst of
flying arrows.
There is one exception, however, and it's not a very important
one when you consider I knew not what I was doing until it was all
over. I killed only seven men during that war with Essur and that
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quite by accident, but to hear others tell the story, I've killed more
men and won more battles than anyone in my army.
Interesting: usually one claims
another has lied about bad
things that he has done, but here
the lies are about noble things.
Your character has a false
modesty that makes the reader
think, "There must be SOME
reason her people likened her to
great heroes elsewhere."
Expanded
Although many stories have been written about me, most of
them are lies. Not only are they for the most part greatly
exaggerated, most of them were taken from fantastic images of
prowess and expertise by famous warriors on distant shores, men
and women of far greater ability and talent than my own.
My own attempts at creating heroic images of warfare have
been half-hearted at best, for I do not like the whiz of arrows past
The pride of royalty comes in
my royal ear, or the stench of rotting flesh when the battle comes
here, too, with that "royal ear."
to a close as all battles eventually must.
No, I would much rather stay at home where I am comfortable,
where meals are served at decent hours and I can rest in bed
without fear of some intruder breaking in to steal my life away,
than to be in the midst of any fiery war. There was only one time
when the stories equaled the truth of the situation, but it's almost
not worth mentioning when you consider that the whole thing was
an accident over which I had no control whatsoever.
We were fighting Essur, that haughty king of the Klopfensteins, when suddenly, from out of nowhere, a whole herd of
Your slant is really making me
human pigs descended upon me. Rather than running as I was
dislike our heroine here! :-)
tempted to do, I turned to fight them off, and when it was all over
Good technique.
and I chanced to open my eyes to look around, the bodies of six,
no, seven men lay dead at my feet.
Your slant of the passage works
Even I couldn't recall how they'd gotten there, but those who
nicely some of the time, but the write stories for silly young girls to read seemed to know exactly
false modesty can't sustain itself how they'd gotten there and what to do about my "bravery." if one
with the words of the original,
could call it that. Whether or not it was true, they painted me as
complicated and admirable-inthe killer of thousands and the victorious ruler over many battles.
her-own-way character.
And foolish readers believed them.
Adult, Walden Excerpt, Narrative, Direct Declarative
I can feel your strain in keeping
this small--the details just seem
to burst out of the seams.
Condensed
Thoreau at first made genuine hoecakes which he cooked
over an outside fire. The taste was both smoky and piny. He tried
pure Indian meal with salt, then flour, and finally a mix of rye and
Indian meal.
In cold weather he greatly enjoyed the process of successively
baking several small loaves. The fragrance he enjoyed as long
as possible by wrapping the bread in cloths. Over time, he was
making a study of the art of bread-making by both reading and
baking. Beginning with the unleavened bread experiments, his
study then progressed to the souring of the dough for leavening
and various other fermentations. His study concluded with a
delicious, wholesome bread.
Good use of a topic sentence to
pull this excerpt into a rounded
whole.
Expanded
Henry David Thoreau, ever the curious naturalist, had long
studied the ancient art of breadmaking before he ventured on a
challenging journey through the history of bread.
Good building up of elements
in the series in this sentence
structure.
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Good use of narrator's
commentary in your switch of
the point of view to third
person.
Good spin on a semi-failure.
Nice bold step with a two-word
sentence fragment that sounds
just right.
"Tour" and "promenade" don't
QUITE go together, since the
latter evokes scenes of
midafternoon strolls in a park.
Good expansion on the image
Thoreau sets up.
Congratulations on an
imaginative addition to the
narrative. However, I'm not sure
how much you can strain the
"friendship" transition this way.
It would take some pondering
over if you were to rewrite this.
Considering the technique of the early Indians to be the most
primitive, he first tried their concoction of pure Indian meal with
salt. After the meal was mixed with a little water, the batter had a
pleasing, grainy texture; he was ready to make genuine hoecakes
over an outside fire. Authenticity was important to Thoreau.
In an effort to more exactly reproduce the preparation of the
Indians, he built up a smoldering fire of dead branches, needles,
and cones from the majestic pines that towered over his cabin.
Certainly the outcome was a slightly smoky as well as piny taste;
nonetheless, he indicated pride in his daily journal. "Today I
returned to the dawning moment in breadmaking," he noted in
bold script.
The adventure continued with flours of various grains as he
had found mentioned in his copious reading. Finally, success.
He found a mix of rye and Indian meal to be the one truly
delicious unleavened bread.
His tour far from over, the promenade through time continued
via many experiments with these delectable fruits of the grasses.
In cold weather, he would pen his notes by the soft glow of the oil
lamp while baking loaf after loaf of hot bread. The fragrance was
like a special friendship that he carefully nurtured by wrapping the
bread in cloths until, despite his efforts, it slowly drifted away.
Not every friendship disappeared. After souring of the dough
for leavening and other fermentations were explored, the almost
unhealthy sour taste of some of his experiments led to a new
enjoyable relationship - this one with the ever chatty squirrels of
the pines. Unwilling, however, to allow taste to inhibit his
curiousity, he pressed on to find a wholesome winter companion
and his journey's end .
Good stretch outside of the
boundaries of the original as
well as deeper into the details of
the original. Nice.
Adult, Till We Have Faces Excerpt
Beautifully done in a tight,
clean space. I like it!
Condensing may be your
personal forte.
Condensed
Some have heard tales of my deeds which have been greatly
exaggerated and even combined with feats of a queen from the
North. Only once did I do any notable deed in battle. In a war
with Essur, Bardia was ambushed and surrounded. I galloped in
and have been told I killed seven men, though at some point I
was wounded. To hear others tell it I planned every battle and
killed more enemies than all of our army.
Nice parallel structure for these
two sentences. It reminds me of
Hebrew poetry's "doubling" for
effect, particularly evident in
Proverbs. However, how does
Expanded (excerpt)
There are many in lands both distant and near who have heard
exaggerated tales of my prowess in battle. Many songs, poems,
and epics have been written about my notable deeds and reign.
But alas, these stories do not belong to me alone. Legends often
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an epic become a third in a list
containing "poems" and
"songs?" Very perceptive final
point.
combine many ordinary people into a great mythical one.
Notes for Teachers/Parents
I want to give you a review of how my live class, with three of my own children and three from
another family, ranging in age from 7 – 13, worked with The Happy Prince. Please be aware that I
am sharing this for those who are interested in how to teach the progymnasmata to younger
students, and others of you may feel free to do nothing but skim this message to glean a point or
two.
After the preliminary exercises with who, what, when, etc., I passed out individual copies of a
large-print version of the excerpt in our assignment, and we focused on the first half. I asked if
they could help me reduce the passage from its 150 words to about 75, considering that that
would mean getting rid of every other word, essentially.
We took one sentence at a time and I called on different students to tell what they'd cross out to
preserve the main idea of the sentence, and I entertained dissent while settling on one idea. It is
critical to maintain a friendly and supportive atmosphere, as students just being nasty toward
other students will ruin it, so it helps to encourage godly regard for siblings and friends. The best
way to encourage it, of course, is to model it, so I lavish lots of praise on the students' efforts.
The Happy Prince Condensed
We wound up with something like this: " 'When I was alive,' answered the statue, 'I lived in the
Palace of Sans Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. I played with my companions and I
led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what
lay beyond it. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, if pleasure be happiness. Up here so high
I can see all the ugliness and misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead, I weep.' "
Note that last sentence, produced by a 9yo and a sophisticated alteration of the original. ("And
now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the
misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead, yet I cannot choose but weep.") You can
see how this form of condensing is also a great exercise in grammatical construction.
We discussed how the students might expand on this portion, and then I had them individually
cross out portions of the second big paragraph. This crossing-out exercise was completed about
an hour or more into our class time, and at this point I had each one copy by hand into his or her
own notebook the resulting condensed version of the second big paragraph. I then took up the
original printouts and closed up the session for the day.
The Happy Prince Expanded
Two days later we began with another warm-up by having my children narrate a little incident
from our own family history. (A week or so before my 11yo had had her feet in a canoe and her
hands on a dock, they separated slowly but inexorably, and she fell in a weedy lake.) We
reviewed the who/what/when list and I left those terms on the board. Then they all pulled out their
handwritten versions of the first paragraph of our excerpt from The Happy Prince, and I asked
them to expand the 90-odd-word version with any details they thought appropriate to bring the
story alive again.
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Most of them remembered the original well enough to add in mostly the original details, but some
went a step further. One particularly imaginative boy in the other family, an 8yo, really focused on
"rich" details like the gold leaf and gems on the statue I'd told them about in my own quick plot
summary of the whole book. Another boy focused on the height and materials of the wall, and
the very practical 13yo girl in the other family, when asked to expand on a particular sentence, did
so not with depth of detail but with breadth of narration, explaining more of the circumstances of
the story. That's a valid sort of expansion, too, if the context allows for it, though in general young
writers tend to need more depth of detail in their work, and that sets the stage for description, the
next of the progymnasmata we will study.
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